citizen. After we carefully evaluated the last 3 years of violent crime data for our city we found that the highest

[ Editor’s Note: Chief Oakes asked for some space in the paper to directly address the community, and we were happy to oblige]

Beginning in October of 2015, West Memphis Police Department partnered with the United States Department of Justice in a program known as the Violence Reduction Network (VRN). This program is designed to help local communities like ours that are struggling with violent crime develop strategies to help reduce this violence and improve the quality of life for its citizens. This program is a collaborative effort between the West Memphis Police Department, the office of State Prosecutor Scott Ellington, the office of Parole and Probation and multiple Federal law enforcement partners including the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and Federal Law Enforcement agencies with the shared goal of making your neighborhood a better, safer place to live.

During the last year, senior staff from the West Memphis Police Department traveled to several other VRN cities around the country to study a variety of programs and strategies that are already proving to be successful at reducing violent crime in the areas in which they have been implemented. After we carefully evaluated all of the programs and strategies we saw, it was clear that the best option for West Memphis was to duplicate parts of a program known as “LASER” that was developed by the Los Angeles Police Department and Justice & Security Strategies, Inc. The idea of the LASER program is relatively simple and we believe it will work well for us, requiring only minor changes to fit our department size and our current man power. We refer to our version of the program as “DETER” (Data Enhanced Targeted Enforcement and Restoration).

In its most basic form the DETER program is very simple: it is an evidence based enforcement strategy that uses a detailed analysis of crime data to identify specifically what area of our city has the highest concentration of violent crime and, more importantly, who specifically is committing the violent crime in our city. Then through a process of high visibility targeted policing, neighborhood improvements and by utilizing cooperation from our partner agencies we then can address these specific locations and specific individuals in the most efficient and cost effective manner possible. The VRN program provided us with computer software that allows us to take the data, that we were already collecting and storing, and effectively analyze it and convert it into a useful, easy to understand format that we can use to help identify the areas and individuals that can benefit most from the DETER program.

DETER is an “Offender Based Program” and although it does require officers to proactively patrol identified problem areas, unlike traditional “Zero Tolerance Programs” it is highly focused on specific individuals and specific problems. Zero Tolerance Programs were designed to use very broad strokes and to target everyone who happened to be in a high crime area for any minor offense with the hope that this broad, heavy handed policing method would reduce crime. These programs have been used all over the country and you may have heard them referred to as “Stop and Frisk,” “Broken Windows Policing” or “Proactive Neighborhood Policing.” Although I believe these tactics do reduce violent crime over the short term, it is my opinion that, at least in our community, these Zero Tolerance Programs have been proven to be non-productive, difficult to manage, expensive to sustain and tend to have a very negative long term impact on the very neighborhoods they were supposed to help. This very broad, non-specific approach makes the average law abiding resident feel like the police are not there to help them, but that they are an occupying force there to control them. This perception causes mistrust between the police and the general public; this is why our program is designed to address the specific individuals that cause the high levels of violence while having as little negative impact as possible on the average

citizen.

After we carefully evaluated the last 3 years of violent crime data for our city we found that the highest

concentration of violent crime was inside the area shown on the attached map. This 0.59 square mile area makes up only 2.1% of the total geographic area of the City of West Memphis, but accounted for almost 10% of the violent crime over the last 3 years. This high concentration of violent activity makes this area the ideal location for the initial deployment of the geographic based portion of this program and it will begin in that area on February 1, 2017.

DETER is designed to be highly visible and very public and this visibility will be a major factor in the program's success. The first step in the high visibility aspect of this plan is to notify the people living in the targeted areas that their neighborhood has been identified for this program.

This notification will come in the form of a letter from me that will explain to them exactly what they can expect to see as a result of their area being selected for this program. The letter will also provide them a specific point of contact at the Police Department for them to call in the event they have some information or if they simply want to help in some way. The citizens in these communities are the most important part of this program; everything within the program is designed to improve their quality of life by making their neighborhood a better, safer place to live and to raise a family. The more assistance we receive from these citizens, the better results we will be able to provide for them.

After the notification is made to the citizens living within the selected area, we will then be making contact with the Chronic Offenders that the data has identified as being responsible for the violence in our city. These Chronic Offenders are not necessarily from the DETER area, but have been identified as chronic violent offenders through the detailed analysis of city wide data. This is not an arbitrary list; these individuals will be systematically identified by many factors including: the frequency of their contacts with the police department, history of committing violent crimes, history of unlawful weapons possession, gang involvement and whether or not they are currently on parole or probation. There are no secrets in this program; these chronic offenders will be notified of their designation and will be given the opportunity to correct their future behavior. It will be clearly explained to them that we will be closely monitoring their conduct and that if they continue to commit violent acts these acts will receive special attention beginning with the initial investigation and continuing all the way through their court hearings and sentencing. It is my intention to leave them with a very simple choice: become a contributing member of our society or face the most severe consequences possible for their actions.

These notifications will be followed up with a highly visible and specifically targeted police presence. All of the West Memphis Police Department divisions, including the Patrol Division, Criminal Investigative Division and Narcotics Unit, will pay special attention to any issues within the designated areas or any issues involving the identified chronic offenders. Our federal partners have agreed to pursue federal charges whenever possible and have already proven their willingness to do so on several recent cases.

In order for us to implement this program correctly without affecting the quality of service to other areas of the city, we had to make several major changes to our standard day to day procedures as well as our traditional policing methods. This included changes to our staffing schedules and how we assign, dispatch and respond to calls.

We all know change is hard and, with this in mind, the Police Department's Training Division began a program in early January to insure that every police officer and dispatcher had the information and training necessary to properly implement this program. Officers must have a clear understanding of what the program goals are and what they need to do to help us achieve them.

If the initial target area shows the level of improvement as I expect it to, we will expand this program to other neighborhoods in the city without reducing the amount of attention other areas of the city receive as we have made the changes necessary to effectively police the non-targeted areas while simultaneously deploying the DETER program.

This is one small step toward trying to improve these neighborhoods and make them a safer place for people to live, but it does not address the underlying cause of the violence that is destroying many of these areas. We must all realize that almost all of this violence is driven by drugs and street gangs which are driven by three major factors: poverty, a lack of opportunity or perceived opportunity and a lack of family structure or guidance. Almost all of the perpetrators and victims of this violence

are young men that are

gang members and/or are selling or buying drugs.

Many of them are involved with these activities because they see no other options or opportunities in their lives.

We must find a way to begin addressing this in an open, honest and effective way. To this end we have also identified several other programs that we believe would be very beneficial in at least trying to address this, but they all require funding that we don't currently have. We are actively pursuing funding for these programs through both federal and private sources and we will implement them when and if funding becomes available.

Donald Oakes

Chief of Police